career-ender. >> i grew up in wisconsin, a well-loving family. i was educated that that's a drug. you don't do by doctors and dispense bid pharmacies. >> this is harry j. -- >> but that all changed in 1930. >> henry anslinger, for him marijuana. >> th guy, saw how he could increase the budget of his department by having this mission going after marijuana. >> saying there's this drug that the mexican migrant works are smoking and it is loco weed and it is crazy and it will make them rape your women. >> he got the message out through news reports.

and then came this -- >> curing the insane. >> refer madness, portraying it as unproductive, crazed. >> people are still afraid of what t can do to them. >> in many ways, defining our attitudes for 70 years. >> yeah. >> marijuana became illegal in 1937. by 1970, it was a schedule one controlled substances. the government wag was saying, it nod medicinal value and had high potential for abuse. all the reason the figgies stayed away from mauer wayna, until this. and this may be hard for you to watch. >> okay, baby. >> this is their daughter, charlotte. having a seizure. >> we just thought it was one

random seizure. >> nothing to , no medications, a fluke. >> right. >> a fluke made sense. after all, charlotte, nicknamed charlie, born healthy, fraternal twin to sister chase. >> charlie always had big smiles. >> easy. >> easy. very much so. >> so around three months when you first noticed that char wli add seizure. >> i was changing a diaper -- well, putting a new diaper off from after a bath ear h eyes started flickering. >> it led to a trip to the e.r. >> this did the whole workup, spinal tap, whole workup, found nothing and sent us home. >> no abnormal scan. >> and normal development. walking and talking, same day as her twin. noing was behind yet. >> by the time she was two, though, the seizures became constant and started to take

their toll on their once happy, joyful little girl. >> she started to really decline. cognitively. she was slipping away and not keeping up with her twin. >> they finally found an answer. it is severe intractable epilepsy. seizures start during the first year of life and unstoppae. difficult to control and very damaging. >> severe benaforial problems. attention deficit. self injury. banging her head on the floor. pulling her hair out. like a possessed child. this isn't injury perfect happy charlotte. >> it was a race against time. many gervae kids die young, in early child hood. charlotte was almost three. >> for the next two years, the figgies tried everything. strange diet. acupuncture. dozens of drugs like valium,

phenobarbital and nothing worked. some medications nearly killed her. >> after one dose she stopped breathing. after two doses her heard stopped. >> did you have to do cpr herself? >> yes. i remember her heart stopped. i felt her pulse and nothing. ambulance was on its way. >> she survived. >> you're okay. mommy's here. >> but now, fall of 2011. and charlotte was five years old. >> when things are at their wor worst, she will just recedes all night. the kids next door can hear her. izures come all night. and chase will come in the morning and miss her twin and rub her and hug her and sa i'm so glad you survived through the night last night. >> matt had been deployed to afghanistan. and the only thing he could do to help was start scouring the internet. and he stumbled on to this video

of a child using marijuana. >> how is everything going? >> four days without seizure. >> i'm like, wow, having success. this is interesting. it is natural. >> and while he couldn't ever imagine taking marijuana himself, he was now in the stunning position of recommending it for charlotte. >> i was like, we need do this. >> and said, i don't know. >> and then, charlotte's condition got worse. >> 300 seizures a week. almost two every hour. she was not talking or moving. basically cat tonic. as a last resort, doctors wanted to prescribe a powerful veterinary drug used on epileptic dogs or put charlte in a medically induced coma so her brain and body could rest. for paige, those were not good options. but maybe, just maybe, marijuana now was. but she was about to find out how hard that would be. >> this doesn't go to the

pharmacy and pick up your medicine. there was no protocol. >> when we come back, what will the figgies do? and what would you do ithis were your daughter? thank you orville and wilbur... ...amelia... neil and buzz: for teaching us that you can't create the future... by clinging the past. and with that: you're history. delta is looking beyond. 80 thousand of us investing billions... in everything from the best experiences below... to the finest comforts above. we're not simply saluting history... we're making it. but i feel skinnier, you know? not really. aaah! jessica! whoa! your friend's a rate sucker. her bad driving makes car insurance

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i had resigned myself. i don't think she's going to survive this. >> we've seen her flat line in the hospital. we've said good-bye. >> you're listening to matt and paige figgie, describe their own daughter. what would youo if this were your child? charlotte figgie had an extreme

form of epilepsy. her body was so frail that any seizure could kill her. with no traditional treatment to try and the clock ticking away, her parent decided to try marijuana. charlotte was just five years old. >> you need a card in order to get the cannabis from a pharmacy. doctors prescribe it. >> you need two doctors in colorado to get the card for juvenile or child. it was hard. we were the first young child and they said no. everyone said no, no, no. >> certainly her age played a role. >> dr. alan shackle foed is a drr. he knives prescription for medical marijuana for children. when charlotte came into his office, he knew she was this trouble. while seeing her, she had pro seizures. she failed everything. there were no more options. everything had been tried.

except cannabis. >> here is how scientist think it might work. >> marijuana is made uch of thc, the nart makes you high, and cbd, also called cannabadial. the cbd scientists think take electro and mechanical activity that wiley et the activity no the wran to help geez urs. seizures. >> for a long time the work on cannabis and epilepsy was inkos conclusive. it was only when they started separating it that they saw, yes, cbd seems to really stop seizures. so the figgies needed to find something rare, a strain of marijuana low in thc. they didn't want charlotte getting stoned. but also high in cbd to treat her seizures. and that wouldn't be easy. to dispensaries an growers make

their money off strains that are high in thc. >> i'm joel. >> i'm josh. >> no one knows that better than the stanley brothers. they're family business is pot. if you look at these clean-cut guys and what you see surprises you, don't worry. they've heard it all before. >> when we are around the corner, they are like oh, wait a second. did you finish high school? >> they all not only finished high school, but also college app and in some cases graduate school. now, they are some of colorado's biggest growers. and dispensary owners. they produce up to 600 pound of medical marijuana a year and much of that marijuana is high in thc. but here, on the remote farm at this undisclosed locations in the mountains -- >> it takes a lot of plants. they are allowed to grow six per patient. >> they are growing something different. something they call revolutionary. >> greenhouse one. >> grown house one. welcome to it.

welcome to paradise. >> behindlosed doors and under tight security we enter what stanleys call the garden of eden. >> there is nothing like this in the world. 21% cbd and less than 1% thc. >> it took years of cross breeding plants to get to this point. >> instead of breeding up the thc, we have bread down the thc. and bread up to cbd. and people said, you're crazy. who is going to smoke that? >> why grow it, then? >> the stanleys also believed in cbd's potential to treat many diseases. >> even they have seen it change lives before. >> meet 19-year-old chaz moore. he uses many different strains of marijuana. many of them high in cbd to treat his rare disorder of the diaphragm. >> i lock up -- >> that's why he is talking this way. almost speaking in hiccups like

he can't catch his breath. it is a diaphragm flutter. >> it becomes painful. >> quickly, i imagine. >> after 15, 20 minutes, i start to really feel it. >> he is about to show me how the marijuanaworks. he's been convulsing now for seven minutes. >> how quickly do you expect this to work? >> within the first five minutes. >> and i'm done. >> that's it? >> was actually less than a minute. >> depend willingiing on the at the day, sometimes within the first couple hit -- >> that alack lasted eight minutes but some have lasted much longer. and happen as often as 40 times a day. and like charlotte, he tried so

many things before. by 16, chaz was taking these powerful addictive potentially deadly narcotics and muscle relaxants ely. like valium and morphine. >> it would be safe to say that that marijuana, what you have in your hand there, is better than all of those pills there in terms of treating? >> yeah. i'm not as much of a zombie. i've had 16, 17 attacks today and i'm still sitting up talking to you. my first attack on all of these, i would be in the hospital. >> i'm a firm believer that marijuana saved my son's life. >> chaz's father, shawn -- >> his quality of life now is a thousand times better than what it was when he was on the pharmaceuticals. >> quality of life that paige figgie desperately wanted for her daughter, charlotte. but she still had one hurdle to cross. convincing dispensaries, like the stanleys, to sell marijuana to a 5-year-old little girl. >> when they called my brother

joel, my brother set a meeting and said, tell us about this patient. she is five years old. we can't do that. why? a fear of the unknown. charlotte is one of the youngest patient at the time wanting marijuana. would it be too much for her? or would it change her life forever? we will find that out later. but first, learn more about what marijuana does to your kid's brain, and yours as well. i'm beth... and i'm michelle. it's a stationery andand gifts store.r cottage. anything we purchase for the paper cottage goes on our ink card. so you can manage your business expenses and access them online instany with the ge changing app from ink. we didn't get into business to spend time managing receipts, that's why we have ink. we like being in business because we like being creative, we like interacting with people. so you have time to focus on the things you love. ink from chase. so you can.

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>> areou smoking weed? yeah! >> april 20th, denver, colorado. tens of thousands from around the country, and the world, lighting up legally. >> cannabis, y'all. >> for some, a lifestyle. for others, a lifeline. >> working with the lupus foundation and rheumatoid arthritis. >> but for all of them, i wondered, what was it doing to their brain. >> my patients call me p dock. >> pot doc? >> they never meet anyone as interested in their marijuana use as i am. >> dr. stacey gruber is curious about pot. >> i want you to namthe numbe and not read it. >> okay. >> i led her at mclane hospital near boston. she is using high-tech imaging to see what happens in the brain when you smoke. >> when you first smoke, you light up a joint, a blint, receptors, throughout the brain, respond. these areas of the brain are

responsible for things like pressure, memory, learning, sensation, sense of time and space. coordination, movement. appetite and others drives, shall we say. all over. >> so reward? pleasure. hunger. you have this overall feeling of well-being, they say. that all sounds pretty good. >> it does sound pretty good. >> and it is not just feeling good, but there a phenomenon reported by many smokers over the years, especially famous artist, the ability to be more creative. >> when you feel that high, there is a release of dopamine and your brain sort of has the ability to perceive things slightly differently from the way you might have if you hadn't been smoking pot. what you really see is this reduction in inhibitory function. >> welcome, dr. gupta. >> pretty spectacular.

>> less ambition. that's something that amere says helps him be more creative. his canvass sell for up to $25,000. >> my favorite way to work. >> marijuana? >> yeah. >> he's been painting for 14 years. smoking for even longer. he said it makes him feel more relaxed, but most importantly, let critical of his own work. >> not worrying so much about this and that and just sort of looking and being as present as possible. >> amere does caution that it is a delicate balance for him. >> it would make me very apprehensive, maybe a little paranoid. just too analytical. >> can you get paranoid, have disorganized thinking, disoriented. it can be uncomfortable. it can lead to pan uk attacks or

anxiety attacks in people. >> how do you know when you've done too much? >> simple tasks become very frustrating. like mixing paint. and then just get into a state of ahhhhh -- you know. >> and why that happens is exactly what columbia university neuro scientist carl harp is investigating. >> exhale. >> research subjects in his lab smoke marijuana and then take a variety of cognitive tests. >> effects will be disruption in memory. disruptions in inhibitory con ko control. they become slower at cognitive functioning. a wide array of things. they are temporary, but pronounced and clear. >> it is slowly becoming clear to scientists what part of the brain is most effected. the prefrontal cortex. >> it is very important for

planning, thinking, coordinating behaviors. tons of marijuana receptors in this region. we think that marijuana, particularly in the novice, can disrupt all of those behaviors. >> what harp cautions could be dangerous. especially when driving. >> you may prematurely hit your brakes, the gas pedal. you may make a turn without looking more carefully. >> look at the experiment done by cnn affiliate kiro in washington state. subjects smoked marijuana then drove. one was a daily medical marijuana smoker. and another, an infrequent weekend smoker. >> relaxed and buzzed. >> the more the novice user smoked, the more trouble behind the wheel. >> watch yourself, watch yourself. >> but interestingly, the habitual smoker didn't have as much trouble. >> and that something i witnessed firsthand driving

around with 19-year-old chaz moore. the day i spent with him, he had been smoking all day long. >> do you feel impaired at all? >> no, i don't. i feel normal. >> turns out, when you test people who have a lot of experience with cannabis, you don't see many disruptions. but if you test people who have sort of a limited history with cannabis, you can see some clear pronounced disruptions. >> of course, no one thinks that driving when using marijuana is a good idea. but what scientists can't answer is if there is a safe legal limit. and if people who use marijuana daily as a medicine, should be able to drive. how impaired are they? what is more cloer though, is the effect of marijuana on the young brain. >> what we think is a big difference in people who begin to smoke prior to age 16 and those who smoke after ang 16. what we call early versus later onset. >> the brain scan shows the white matter, highways that help

the brain communicate from one point to another, are impaired, in those who start smoking early. >> there is underlined white matter. >> that is your concern, sounds like. that those highways, white matter highways, are just more disru disrupted in people who smoke. >> that's not surprising, given what we know about the young developing brain. >> that's a young developmental time. that's an good time to take any drugs. >> preliminary research shows that early onset smokers are slower at task, higher stroke and increased cognitive disorders. some scientists are still concerned because in 2012, 35% of high school seniors lit up. and that could mean a generation of kids with damaged brains. and many fear something else. >> i never really told myself i needed help. >> a generation of marijuana

addicts. >> when we come back, the truth and the science behind what is being called a growing epidemic. and later, charlotte's story. one of the youngest children to try marijuana in colorado. [ male announcer ] what's important to you? at humana, our medicare agents sit down with you and ask. being active. and being with this guy. [ male announcer ] getting to know you is how we help you choose the humana medicare plan that works best for you. mi familia. ♪

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this was the day chaz moore almost died. pumped full of drugs like morphine, valium, to quiet a nonstop 48-hour attack. >> they thought i was going to

overdose and, it was pretty bad. >> at his bedside, his father, shawn, watched his son go from being cata tonic to what he calls high as a kite. >> i've watched friends of mine die from taking the same drugs that he took. >> you see, shawn, was a drug addict and he struggled for decades to get clean. p. >> it was scary. it was very important for him not to take these drugs, if he could avoid them. >> if he can avoid them. i know how addictive they are. i've seen it. it scared the hell out of me. >> but shawn is not scared of marijua marijuana, and neither is chaz. >> this here, i don't get sick. i can't overdose. >> and chaz is right about that. while there are fatal accidental prescription medicine overdoses, every 19 minutes in this country, there are virtually no report of fatal marijuana overdoses. and perhaps one of the biggest

reasons most people think pot is safe. in fact, a new study of children, showed that by high school, only one in five think marijuana in high school. that's the lowest nubl in more than two decades. and something we have heard over and over as we traveled around the country. >> not really that harmful. >> it has a lot of benefits. not really too concerned about it. >> i think it's safe, if you're a safe person. >> but the experts we spoke to said there is more to the story. >> there are people who compulsively smoke, who want to stop smoking, but they can't stop smoking. >> in fact, 90% of marijuana smokers will become depend ant. like heroin. 23% become addicted. or 17% with cocaine or 15% with alcohol. but it is still approximately one out of every 11 marijuana smokers. >> there is no longer any

scientific debate that marijuana is not just psychologically addictive. but also physically addictive. >> so give me an update, how you doing? >> dr. christian thurston runs one of the biggest youth asubstance abuse clinics. >> literally, i cried about it. >> marijuana is number one on their list of priorities. they dropped out of life. >> back in the day, i would have been like, my day hasn't started if i didn't get high. >> joe started smoking when he was just 13. by 15 bb he was smoking more than a dozen times a day. he stopped skateboarding. even dropped out of school. >> i like getting high. i need get high because my brain is telling me. >> adolescents, at about age 13, have a pretty mature brain reward sent are. they can experience reward and

pleasure the same way adults can. but the problem with that is that their prefrontal cortex which helps people think ahead, control their impulses, that's not fully developed until age 24. that explains why adolescents are much more vulnerable. >> there is something else experts believe is likely happening in the brain. when you smoke pot, the feel-good chemicals that make up marijuana, called cannibanoids, force your brain to stop producing their own natural cannabanoids. when you stop smoking be with you don't have them on your own. until your body kick starts production, you feel lousy. so many people smoke again to feel better. and today's marijuana could be more addictive. more of the psycho active ingredient thc than ever before. brain researchers, dr. norah

volkov. >> the thc content will go very fast into your brain. and then that increases, with the rewarding effects. and likelihood of transition into addiction. >> how much stronger is it? >> you see the barbed wire obviously on the fence. >> i travelled to mississippi, where marijuana is illegal. but here, on the campus of one of the country's oldest universities, ole' miss, a huge stash of marijuana is under lock and key. >> this is our vault. >> is pretty tight security. look at this door. >> mamod runs the marijuana potency project. >> what potency is this? >> about 8%. >> for three decades, his team analyzed weed confiscated from drug pust. >> 36% thc. you can smell it. it has good aromatic smell. >> how much does this worry you,

36% thc, confiscated. >> very, very dangerous material. for someone not experienced, take some of this, and they will go into the negative effects of the high, the psychosis, irritation, irritability, paranoia and all of this. >> and while not all of the plants are this high, there's no question he's seeing a trend. in 1972, the average potency was less than 1% thc. now, nearly 13%. >> are people becoming more obsessed with high thc marijuana? >> i think so. they start out with half percent to one percent. and they get a good high. then as they continue to use that, it doesn't give them the same high any more, so they start smoking more or high potency material. >> it happened to joel vargas. after a couple years of smoking daily, joel eventually ended up in rehab. where he faced mild withdrawal

symptoms. like irritability. insomnia. nausea. >> it certainly isn't anything nearly as dangerous as abrupt discontinuation of alcohol. for someone like joel, it is about learning new bemhaviobeha more than the physiological tolerance or withdrawal issues. >> joel's been clean now for six months. but these kinds of risks, they don't scare off charlotte figgie's parents. >> people ask us that a lot. lining how did you make that decision? it wasn't a decision. >> it wasn't a decision. >> it was the next viable option. >> and some would say, a radical option. marijuana for a 5-year-old. but it was an option they hoped would change her life forever. >> hi, baby. >> when we come back, matt and paige figgie, finally give their charlotte, marijuana. the results are shocking. [ male announcer ] pepcid® presents: the burns family bbq.

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vo:remember to changew that oil is the it on schedule toy car. keep your car healthy. show your car a little love with an oil change starting at $19.95. it was january, 2012, afghanistan, about 7,000 miles away from his family in colorado, matt figgie received this video from his wife, paige. >> it's horrible seeing these videos when i'm deployed. >> it was his 5-year-old daughter, charlotte, seizing. diagnosed with a severe form of epilepsy, she was having 300 seizures a week. each attack so severe, it had the potential to kill her. they had already tried dozens of high-powered drugs. >> we needed to try something else and, at that point in time, marijuana was that natural course of action to try.

>> at home in colorado, searching for marijuana high in cbd, that's the ingredient some scientists think help seizures and low in thc. remember, she didn't want to get her daughter stoned. she found a small amount in the denver dispensecy. she was surprised that the owner even wanted it. >> they said it was funny, nobody wants it. nobody wanted it, it didn't have any effect. >> paige paid $800 for a small bag and took it home. >> i had a friend starting a business making medicine. i said, can you help me extract the medicine from this bag of marijuana. i measured it with a syringe and squirted it under her tongue. >> it was exciting and nerve-racking. >> holding charlotte in her arms, paige waited. an hour ticked by, then another. and then another.

>> she didn't have a seizure that day. then she didn't have a seizure that night. >> so you sit there and look at your watch. >> yeah, i thought, this is krizy. >> then she didn't have the one the next day or the next day. i thought, she would have had a hundred by now. and i just -- i know, i just thought, this is insane. >> i remember how happy paige was. and it is really working. i can't believe it. yeah, that was pretty amazing to hear. >> it had worked. but in just a couple of weeks, the excitement was overshadowed by panic. paige was running out of marijuana and the dispensary didn't have any more of that particular strain. even if there was more, the monthly price tag would have been after the nom raft ro nom cal and not a penny covered by insurance. but then paige heard about the stanleys. the six brothers and their greenhouse of marijuana high in cbd. he said, i don't know what to do with it.

we are trying new things but nobody wants it. it is not saleable. >> i said, don't judge that, because we need that plant. >> at first they didn't want to take the risk of giving marijuana to such a young child. but then they met her. >> tell me about the first time you met matt, paige and charlotte. >> i'm going to get you misty-eyed. >> yeah. you get all of us crying when we start talking about that little girl. >> the figgies hit the jackpot. steady supply of high cbd marijuana and they only had to pay what they could afford. >> people have called us the robin hoods of marijuana. and they say that we sell pot so that we can take care of the kids. and the truly less fortunate. charlotte was the first of those kids. late spring, 2012. she tried the stanley special marijuana and again, it worked. >> i can't tell you what that meant -- what that means to us.

>> it gets you a little bit. >> if it doesn't get you, something is wrong with you. she lived hr life in a cat tonic state. now her parents get to meet her for the first time. what a revelation. >> hi. >> yes, kit oo. >> the child who had 300 seizures a week was now down to just one every seven days. >> pitter pat, tiptoe. >> when i first met charlotte, march of 2013, it was one year after that first dose of marijuana. >> achoo! >> after almost two years on a feeding tube, she was now eating on her own. >> yellow. >> she was talking. >> even walking. >> she said please. >> but these stories, they are not without their skeptics. >> one of the country's two

hospitals dedicated to gervae syndrome in florida, they said there is no evidence that cannabis is effective for the treatment of epilepsy. american academy of pediatrics also opposes cannabis as does the national institute on drug abuse. >> it is such an amazing turn of events. that it can't be a fluke. but i do still wonder. >> do you still wonder too, matt? >> hell, no! >> you know it's working? >> it is working great. >> you just look wonderful. >> and charlotte's doctor, alan shackle ford also agrees. yet his commitment to medical marijuana has drawn criticism. he has even been called dr. feel good. >> how important is this to talk about as a physician. >> we are conservative. as a profession and probably individuals, we want more proof. and cannabis doesn't have that. >> and it is why he has traveled the world, to look for researchers who might have the answers. and that took him to the place

many call, the medical marijuana research capital, israel. it might surprise you, but actually research into cannabis and epilepsy started here in the 1970s with studies that showed it could reduce convulsions in rats. today shackleford is hoping to start clinical trials in humans there. >> we need to understand it well enough that they won't be reluctant to, at least, give it a thought. at least try it. >> and it is not just epilepsy. but researchers in israel are studying a variety of illnesses. >> when we come back, what they're finding, up close. and an amazing look inside hospitals and nursing homes with patients are lighting up, courtesy of the israeli government. anything we purchase for the paper cottage goes on our ink card. so you can manage your business expenses and access them online instantly with the game changing app from ink.

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you'll never believe they're light.

as the sun was rising on the ancient city of jerusalem, the final leg of our journey was just beginning. >> there had been some great advances here, and i'm positive there are others. >> this doctor is with israel's ministry of health. here they have pioneered marijuana research. they were the first to isolate thc and cbd decades ago. and now the country's ministry licenses 10,000 patients to use marijuana medicinally and has approved more than a dozen studies to treat illnesses like ptsd, pain, chrone's disease, even cancer. >> hopefully this is the best medication. we are not there yet. >> answers may come from places like this. it's a state-run nursing home

outside of tel aviv. residents are using marijuana for pain, loss of appetite, parkinson's disease, and dementia. moshay root is one of those residents. he was 77 when he smoked his first pipe of marijuana. he's 80 now and he smokes a couple times a day. it's to help with the pain and the hand tremors caused by a stroke. it's a mixture of tobacco and marijuana. he even decided to light up during our interview to stop his hands from shaking. you're saying your hands are steady because of the marijuana? it also helped ease a deeper pain hidden from sight. he is a holocaust survivor. when his wife died a couple years ago, he was haunted by nightmares of his childhood, hiding from the nazis. the marijuana, he says, took him out of the darkness.

>> you dream. >> when you smoke? >> yeah. >> there are 19 other patients here. scientists at tel aviv university are now studying their progress and they call the results outstanding. including weight gain, improved mood, pain, and tremor reduction. but i can tell you as a doctor, it was my next stop that proved the most surprising. this is israel's largest hospital, sheba medical center. he is using marijuana to help him with the pain and nausea from chemo therapy. >> that's your medicine inside there. and he's doing it inside the hospital. >> how are you feeling? >> it relaxes the muscles in the leg. >> and you're not worried about

any potential damage to your body? >> not at all. the opposite. i really believe i can beat cancer for a long time if i continue with cannabis. >> yes. he said cancer-free. very early studies on mice in israel, spain, and the united states are now showing the potential of marijuana to kill cancer cells. it's exciting research. but it is still in its infancy and its inconclusive. this program is well-established. experts say a teaching tool for using marijuana in other hospitals. do you think this could happen in the united states? >> i don't know that there's yet enough really concrete evidence of cannabis's benefit. but satisfactory, at least in that context. i think it's going to come. >> but it could be slow-going. >> the fda has been great at approving studies.

but national drug abuse has been really blocking and stone walling any effects of cannabis. their mandate is to look at the harm of drug use. >> dr. nora volkoff says they are not standing in the way. she claims they are not the only government institute that approves marijuana research. >> if you would come up with something that says this is going to be a treatment for drug addiction, then it will go to us. if it's cancer, it goes to the cancer institute. if it is schizophrenia, it goes to nimh. so they have a mission with certain diseases. >> what is clear, there are bureaucratic hoops that most researchers simply don't want to jump there. neuroscientist carl hart. >> there are not many people studying marijuana. it's very difficult to get approved to study marijuana. >> what's nice about israel is that the government is helping the research to happen.

>> and it's research that could give hope to patients like charlotte. scientists in israel are learning that marijuana use might actually protect the brain, not damage it. >> they've been able to show it can decrease the amount of brain injuries from head injuries in mice. >> to be able to give medicine after the injury to reverse some of the damage, that's huge. >> you want to paint your nails? i'll paint your nails. >> i literally see charlotte's brain making connections that haven't been made in years. it's almost seeming to build her brain, where before it seemed broken. >> and while scientists are still at the very early stages of knowing if this is actually happening, i can tell you it was remarkable to see her progress. in the three months since we first met her, we saw a change. she was now talking more. >> say puppy.

>> puppy. >> yea! >> she's horseback riding. >> good girl! >> she even rides a bike on her own. and the special strain made for charlotte is now named for her. it's charlotte's web. >> it is charlotte's plant. >> it's charlotte's plant. not anymore. now it's for all the children. >> more than 41 children are using charlotte's web here in colorado. all of them are reporting significant seizure reduction and there are dozens more on a weight list hoping, praying that a plant could change their lives, just like it did for charlotte. >> i'm going to get you. >> you seem very at peace. >> i'm very at peace. very peaceful. >> we've been given a great life. it's unfortunately that charlie has thi